


What We Lose, We Soon Regain

by annabagnell



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Birth, Fawnlock, M/M, Mpreg, it all works out fine though, slight accidental angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-23
Updated: 2013-06-23
Packaged: 2017-12-15 20:38:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/853814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annabagnell/pseuds/annabagnell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John noticed it for the first time just after Sherlock's fourteen-week checkup. The fawn had his dark fingers laid across his burgeoning belly, and had a slightly vacant look in his eyes. </p><p>"Sherlock?" John had asked, and the fawn turned his head slowly to look at John. He didn't seem entirely…there, John thought, but hardly had time to comprehend what it might've meant before Sherlock seemed to break out of his reverie and struck up a conversation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What We Lose, We Soon Regain

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again, my friends. This time there's a bit of a spin on the mpreg, with Sherlock being a fawn. That's right, my first foray into Fawnlock! I rather like it.  
> As always, slightly unrealistic circumstances surround our merry gentlemen. Constructive criticism and comments are absolutely welcome.

John noticed it for the first time just after Sherlock's fourteen-week checkup. The fawn had his dark fingers laid across his burgeoning belly, and had a slightly vacant look in his eyes. 

"Sherlock?" John had asked, and the fawn turned his head slowly to look at John. He didn't seem entirely…there, John thought, but hardly had time to comprehend what it might've meant before Sherlock seemed to break out of his reverie and struck up a conversation. 

* * *

 

As Sherlock's belly filled with their growing twins, so increased the number of times Sherlock seemed to revert back to the way he had been before, when he was living alone in the woods. More longing looks at the forest, more primal his expressions. It seemed also that recently his vocabulary had decreased slightly, and he wasn't stringing together monologues as he so often had before. 

One day, John arrived home from the clinic to find that Sherlock was nowhere to be found. He was just considering phoning the police when the back door opened and there stood Sherlock, belly heavy and sullied with mud and small twigs, debris caught in his fur. He had that look in his eyes again, but when John rushed forward to check him for injuries he quickly snapped out of it and assured John that he was fine, perfectly alright, he'd just gone for a walk and lost track of time was all. 

John wasn't reassured. 

* * *

 

The day John felt the twins move for the first time was the day he decided to confront his concerns. 

"You're reverting," he said quietly that evening, sipping on a cup of tea while Sherlock sat on the sofa and gazed wistfully out at the woods. 

"So I am." Sherlock replied, equally as quiet, but offered no further explanation. 

"Why?" John inquired, setting his mug down and moving closer on the couch to lay a hand on Sherlock's rounded stomach. 

"I believe it has something to do with being in fawn," Sherlock sighed. "As humans tend to nest, so do fawns, although my situation is slightly different. I feel an undeniable urge to hide in a burrow somewhere, safe and warm to await the twins' birth." 

A soft 'oh' from John, and he resumed petting the fawn's furry belly. "We can build you a burrow close to the house, and you can go there as often as you need. And…give birth there, if that's something you want." 

Now it was Sherlock's turn to say 'oh', and a happy but tentative smile spread across his face. "That would be wonderful," he breathed, turning to look at John at last. The twins turned slowly in his belly, and Sherlock laid an absent hand on its curve. "Though I should tell you, the…reverting…will get worse as the gestation progresses." 

John nodded, expecting it would. "To what extent?" 

"There is a good possibility that by the time the twins are due, I will no longer be able to communicate with words. I…I should retain my cognitive abilities, but I will lose - for a time - the vocabulary I built up after I met you." 

"That's fine. That's absolutely fine, Sherlock, and thank you for telling me. I was beginning to get worried." 

"Worried that I'd…what? Abandon you entirely without warning, leave to have the babies on my own and not give you any notice?" Sherlock scoffed, and John tried to keep from nodding as those had been precisely his fears. "John, we mated. Fawns mate for life. I wouldn't - I couldn't leave you, especially not now." He reached over with a lightly furred hand and cupped John's cheek, his thumb stroking along John's cheekbone. "Too much instinct for that. And common sense, though that's playing lesser and lesser a role as instinct overtakes it." 

John laughed, feeling lighter than he had in weeks, and turned his head to kiss the inside of Sherlock's wrist. 

* * *

 

Five weeks later, John awoke to find Sherlock rutting against his hip, taking little gasps of air and letting them out in breathy moans. 

"Couldn't wait until I woke up?" John asked, quickly shedding his pyjamas and pulling Sherlock so he was straddling John's lap. 

Sherlock shook his head. "Needed it. You were asleep," he grunted, and moaned as John started to cant his hips in rhythm with his own. "You don't seem to mind." 

"Not at all," John grunted in return, and gripped Sherlock's hips. 

* * *

 

At six and a half months, Sherlock stopped sleeping indoors, preferring to curl up around his bulging stomach in the small burrow they'd created just inside the edge of the forest. Some nights, John joined him, pressed up against his back and shivering slightly against the chill until Sherlock told him he _was_ allowed to bring out a blanket, if he needed it. 

John took this to heart and brought out a mattress as well, and though Sherlock scoffed at first he appreciated the cushion just as much as John. 

* * *

 

At seven months, Sherlock stopped talking. 

Inquiries were answered with grunts appropriate to the response, yeses with small noises and nodding and nos with varying intensity and loudness depending upon the ridiculousness of the question asked. 

Sex made an interesting turn at this point, where Sherlock would usually respond with cries he began to grunt or mewl or…bleat, though anytime John mentioned it Sherlock would growl and stalk (waddle) away as best he could with the heavy belly on his front. 

* * *

 

At around eight months, Sherlock stopped walking upright. 

John was horrified the first time he saw Sherlock crawling on all fours, his stomach nearly dragging against the floor. The doctor grabbed him by the elbow instantly and pulled him to his feet, ignoring Sherlock's bleats of protest until the fawn was firmly back on two feet. Sherlock frowned and furrowed his brow, making rough gestures to his belly and his legs and his head - repeatedly - and then slowly dropped back to the floor, settling on his knees and letting his belly rest in his lap. 

John knelt next to him, looking concerned, and laid his hands on Sherlock's stretched, now-sparsely furred belly. The fawn slowly put his own hands over John's, and held them there, looking into John's eyes while his own seemed distant and pooled liquid brown. 

"You…need to be on all fours. It's instinct." John said quietly, and Sherlock nodded, making soft noises in his throat. "Walking…feels weird, or hurts?" Sherlock held up one finger - the first option, then - and gestured to his belly and his head again. "Okay. Be careful, Sherlock," John acquiesced, and Sherlock snorted and rolled his eyes as if to say _of course._

* * *

John missed Sherlock. 

Of course, he was here, belly swollen and heavy with their twins, but he wasn't _present_ anymore. His eyes were often vacant, the looks he gave John were distant at best, his mannerisms were all fawn and lacked the edge, the…humanity that Sherlock had had. 

Sherlock, obviously, could tell. But he couldn't do much about it.

Sometimes, he caught John looking at him sadly, and his throat worked and brow furrowed as he tried to speak, struggled to say something that would reassure John. John was reminded, all too often, that the humanity Sherlock had was borrowed, learned. He was bound to lose it to instinct, but it didn't keep him from missing his Sherlock. 

This Sherlock, the one who crawled around lumberingly on hands and knees, whose belly rubbed free of fur as it dragged on the ground, who begged for sex and presented inflamed genitals to John with no regard for propriety, was not his Sherlock. 

But it was Sherlock, and John still loved him, and loved their children as they grew inside his mate. 

The closer the fawn drew to delivery, the more anxious John got. For both their children and the return of his Sherlock. 

* * *

 

On the first day of fall, Sherlock stayed in his burrow all day, rubbing his belly almost constantly and refusing to eat or drink. When John asked if he was in labour, the answer was always a low bleat of a 'no', but both man and fawn could tell the delivery was close. 

In the wee hours of the morning, in the darkness of the night, John awoke to Sherlock nuzzling roughly at his neck. The look of fear and pain in his eyes had John instantly pulling him close, cradling the heavily pregnant fawn in his lap and rocking gently back and forth as the fawn's body shook. 

Sherlock keened and his belly turned to rock under John's hands each time he contracted, but he made no protest when John rubbed his back through each spasm. The fawn's face was buried in John's shoulder, muffling the noises of discomfort he made. John ran his fingers through the fine brown curls on Sherlock's head, doing what he could to comfort his mate. 

After an hour and a half of regular contractions, Sherlock's waters broke, and the fawn cried out throatily as the fur between his thighs wetted and soaked John's lap as well. "Ssh, it's okay. It's moving along, you're doing great," John murmured, pressing kisses to the curve of Sherlock's neck as the fawn moaned in his arms. Sherlock nodded weakly and drew in a deep breath as the contraction released. 

Soon, Sherlock started to wriggle in John's arms, and though the fawn made no actual move to change positions John knew he was torn between the comfort of John's embrace and the desire to move to hands and knees. John gently drew Sherlock from his lap and moved Sherlock's limbs into position, knees spread and hands bracing on the mattress. "I'm right here, Sherlock. I'm not leaving." John was just about to lift his hand to rub Sherlock's back when the fawn's own warm palm slid over his and linked fingers. The doctor looked up to see Sherlock staring back intently, entirely lucid and present for the first time in weeks. Though he did not speak, the tightening of the fawn's grasp read 'thank you' in every way. 

"You're welcome," John said, and pressed a kiss to Sherlock's cheek. 

* * *

 

The first hints of dawn were just beginning to light the horizon when a small dark head appeared beneath Sherlock's tail. The fawn strained, whimpering, and John rubbed his belly and back as his sides trembled with effort. "Very good, Sherlock, it's crowning," he murmured, stroking Sherlock's distended side. 

It took two more hearty pushes for the head to emerge, and John was smiling wetly at the small dark spots that already appeared in the newborn's furred face. So similar to Sherlock's, but lighter than his coloring. John wondered if it was his genetics that played that role, or if it was how all newborn fawn looked. 

His train of thought was interrupted as Sherlock gave a great throaty roar and heaved. The baby's shoulders appeared slowly, and John tentatively held the slippery wet body as Sherlock pushed it out. With a mighty strain, the baby slid from Sherlock's body and suddenly John was holding his firstborn, a baby girl with blood staining her tan and brown fur. She whimpered, tiny arms flailing and fists balled up and John swiped at tears with his shoulder and clutched her close.

Sherlock was looking around at her, smiling weakly at the sight of his mate holding their baby to his chest. He barely had a respite before his body contracted again, just long enough to lift a hand and wipe away a bit of membrane from her fuzzy forehead. John looked concerned but Sherlock nodded and grunted, urging John to care for this infant as he worked to deliver the next. _I can do this part on my own,_ the look seemed to say. _Take care of her first._

John wiped her down with a clean cloth and then wrapped her in a blanket, trying to swaddle her as she wriggled and whimpered. She began to quiet as she warmed, the blanket keeping away the chill of the night air, and soon was asleep in John's arms. 

"John." The grunt startled the doctor. He hadn't expected to hear Sherlock's voice for at least another few days, maybe a week or a month until the instinct started to wear off, but there it was, rougher than usual but insistent. "She fine. Help me, stuck." 

John quickly set the baby down in a nest of blankets and cushions and rushed to Sherlock's side, lifting his tail anxiously and drawing in a breath when he saw feet instead of a head. 

"It's breech, Sherlock, I'm going to have to help." 

"Please." The fawn's sides strained, and without hesitation John grasped the fuzzy ankles and tugged with Sherlock's pushes. It would be more difficult this way, the arms would be upwards and would pull Sherlock wider, but hopefully John would be able to pull them down one by one and avoid tearing Sherlock. 

The baby's bottom and torso emerged quickly enough, but just as John expected the infant's arms were up around its head. John grimaced and slid a hand inside Sherlock's body in between contractions, trying to hook the baby's arm with his finger and pull it down. His hand was unexpectedly crushed as Sherlock contracted and strained, and this time John cried out as his phalanges ground together. 

"Fuck," he hissed when the spasm released, and worked efficiently to pull the baby's arm gently out of Sherlock's birth canal. He managed to hook the second one just before Sherlock contracted, and John shouted 'don't push! Don't push!', worried that a contraction with the baby at this angle could do damage. Sherlock panted and groaned as he fought his body's natural urge, but managed to hold off. John pulled the arm out as soon as Sherlock's body relaxed, and the baby's head was out with hardly a strain at the next contraction. 

"What is," Sherlock started, and John said 'a boy' and hastened to make sure its airway was clear before wiping it off with another clean towel. When next he turned around, Sherlock was straining weakly and before he could set the baby down to help, Sherlock had passed the placenta and was now on trembling hands and knees, belly deflated and hollow and breathing slowly. 

"Well done, love," John murmured, and gently lifted Sherlock and moved him to lay in the nest beside their young. Sherlock smiled and pulled both bundled infants close to his chest, kissing their furry foreheads and mewling softly. John sat down behind Sherlock, rubbing the fawn's ribs as they slowly rose and fell. 

The four of them spent that first night together, in a soft warm nest of blankets in a burrow in the woods. The doctor, the fawn, and their children. 


End file.
